Effect of Rib Width on the Heat Transfer Enhancement of a Rib-Turbulated Internal Cooling Channel

In the quest for enhancing heat-transfer for the internal cooling channels of advanced turbo-machines, many schemes have been used and developed over the years. One such scheme is the use of rib turbulators. There have been fundamental studies in the past to understand the heat transfer enhancement phenomena caused by flow separation due to the presence of ribs. Typical ribs investigated in laboratory type experiments are square in nature i.e. the height, e, of the rib and the width, w, is the same. Although the literature deals with the effects of various rib shapes, little is known about the effect of having e/w not equal to unity. In this paper we investigate the degree of heat transfer enhancement caused by ribs with e/w not equal to unity. Experiments are carried out in a straight duct with ribs oriented normal to the main flow. The P/e ratio, P being the pitch of the ribs, is kept at a constant value of 10 while the ratio w/P is varied systematically from 0.1 to 0.5. Results are reported for Reynolds numbers ranging from 20,000 to 40,000. The aspect ratio of the channel is varied from 1:4 to 1:8 (Height : Width) and their effect is also shown. For all the cases investigated, pressure drop penalty is also presented.